Coming soon* Review of A Little History of Music

September 3, 2023

I recently reviewed this book for Teach Secondary magazine.

The next edition of Digital Education will contain... (corrected version)

July 14, 2023

(Formatting error corrected) “…as AI algorithms became more sophisticated, they began to mimic the writer's unique style seamlessly, subsequently rendering the human writer obsolete.”

The next edition of Digital Education will contain...

June 29, 2023

“…as AI algorithms became more sophisticated, they began to mimic the writer's unique style seamlessly, subsequently rendering the human writer obsolete.”

Driverless cars: technology trumps experience - again (Updated)

May 30, 2023

If you want an excellent example of the triumph of hope over experience, look no further than the optimism surrounding driverless cars.

Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom Revisited

April 28, 2023

In my opinion, the potential benefits of artificial intelligence make it a very attractive proposition for use in education.

Review of technicians exhibition

April 25, 2023

Should you ever find yourself in the unlikely circumstance of having to choose between me administering medication or waiting for a paramedic, my advice would be to wait.

Is your website contributing to AI bots?

April 21, 2023

I checked if my websites had been scraped, and this what I discovered…

DALL·E 2023-04-20 12.58.36 - A girl using a calculator in the style of Roy Litchtenstein

This doesn't add up: the Prime Minister's fretting about numeracy skills and people's attitudes towards them

April 20, 2023

Forgive me while I go off the subject of computing etc, but I feel I have to comment on the British Prime Minister’s recent headline-making pronouncement that kids need to be taught maths until they are 18 years old, and that they should ashamed of not being numerate.

What I Look For in a Conference (Updated)

March 21, 2023

I attend a lot of conferences, and over the years I've developed a useful set of criteria by which to evaluate them. Here, then, in no particular order, are my top 14 characteristics of a good conference.

Last chance to register online for Bett (for free)

March 3, 2023

I’ve just discovered that today (3rd March 2023) is the last day to register online for free for the edtech show known as Bett.

Updated! Supporting teachers through a challenging period

March 1, 2023

Updated! Discounts for Teachers is a free membership scheme which joins forces with retailers to help all staff, in any role working across the education sector to save money.

Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

More on our corrections policy

February 17, 2023

Just to let you know, this website is being reviewed by Newsguard.

Our corrections policy UPDATED

February 16, 2023

UPDATED My corrections policy wasn’t easy to find so I’ve created a dedicated page for it.

Robot writer, by Terry Freedman — My depiction of ChatGPT getting more and more frazzled by the number of assignments I throw at it — Drawing by Terry Freedman

Coming soon... Digital Education ezine, focusing on ChatGPT

February 6, 2023

Yes, it’s all over the internet, but ChatGPT is still worth looking at. I am compiling a list of useful (I trust) links, and have a few things to add to the plethora of comments already out there.

Good news regarding the Government's plans to make the Oak Academy an arms-length body

December 14, 2022

The Oak provided useful resources during the lockdowns, and continues to create them. But there are four things wrong with the DfE's plan…

Terry Freedman and bookcase, by Terry Freedman

Fake news?

November 24, 2022

I’ve compiled a number of reviews of non-fiction books that either deal with helping people detect untruths (such as in so-called scientific research) or presenting something as true when, in fact, it isn’t.

7 questions about blogging (Updated)

November 18, 2022

You can build up a body of work without having to try going through gatekeepers.

Someone suffering from FOMO, by Terry Freedman

7 incredibly useful links

November 10, 2022

These links were first highlighted in the Digital Education newsletter.

I don't write only about ed tech...

November 2, 2022

I have lots of thoughts about education in general too. Here’s some information about another newsletter I write, about education in general.

The factory of the future (what a load of tosh)

November 2, 2022

I have recently had a glimpse of techno-utopia. It is not pretty.

Recent book reviews

The Teachers' Standards in Primary Schools.jpg

Quick look: The Teachers' Standards in Primary Schools

This is very well set out. It takes each standard, and gives you ideas on how to achieve it, and what success in this context looks like.

How Computer Games Help Children learn.jpg

Quick look: How Computer Games Help Children learn

When I was teaching Econnures I realised that I could have taught quite a chunk of the synabus if I'd been able to run Sim City on the school network.

Quick look: Reinventing Project-Based Learning

I can verify from first hand experience that PBL kept students highly engaged, and helped them to develop skills such as working with others and independent research.

Quick look: The Human Touch

Although this book is published by the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, the focus is not on IT at all.

Quick look: Better Living through science

I have often thought that I would have been much more interested in science at school, and been much more successful at it, had the teachers taught us anything of practical value.

Quick look: Tubes: Behind the scenes at the internet

We are all so accustomed to using the internet, searching the world wide web — "going online" — that most of us most of the time probably do not stop to consider the question: yes, but where exactly is it?

Quick look: Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings: (When) do leaders make a difference?

I have somewhat dichotomous views of this question of whether leaders make a difference, or much of a difference.

Review: Power Up, by Matthew Lane

This book looks at the maths concepts — and, to some extent, the physics concepts — hidden in popular video games.

Review: The Shortest History of AI

How is it that ChatGPT, Claude and other Al models appear to perform so well at certain complex tasks that some people become convinced that they're sentient — only for them to then promptly fail at simple tasks that even a child could handle?

Review: Teacher Geek

Every so often I like to take a look, or another look, at a book published a while ago, and today I’ve been looking at Teacher Geek, by Rachel Jones.